This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) project is a Type III (A:C) partnership between the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC), an NSF PFI graduate (0090578), and Johnson County Community College (JCCC) (Overland Park, KS) and William Jewell College (Liberty, MO), both institutions new to the PFI Program (defined as ones that have never been PFI grantees). The Whiteboard to Boardroom (W2B) partnership seeks to maximize the ability of all higher education institutions, including those with R&D funding of less than $100 million per year, to make a vital contribution to the region's economy by creating a system that identifies commercialization opportunities in the higher education institutions and seamlessly connects them to myriad community resources that support business development. It focuses on identifying, supporting, and capitalizing on existing resources in the Kansas City region to realize technology commercialization. It will invoke a process that creates a mechanism that "pulls" technologies out of the institution rather than waiting for an innovator to ask for assistance with an idea and actively moves them through the business development pathway. The W2B team brings together faculty and professions that collectively have the knowledge of the academic process and business creation.
W2B will provide a replicable method to train faculty and students in the understanding of the commercialization process. It will broaden the participation of all types of academic institutions in the innovation process by defining ways that community colleges and other non-research intensive institutions can contribute to this process. It will create a technology platform supporting replication in other communities. A partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration (U.S. SBA) will allow results to be disseminated directly to small business development resources in universities and colleges around the country.
Partners at the inception of the project are Academic Institutions: University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC) (lead institution), Johnson County Community College, William Jewell College, and University of Kansas; Private Sector Organizations: Citizens Bank & Trust Company, Enterprise Center of Johnson County/Mid-America Angels; Kansas City Area Life Science Institute, Kansas Women's Business Center/Women's Capital Network, Kauffman Foundation, Polsinelli Shalton Flanigan Suelthaus PC, Show-Me Angels, Tradebot Ventures, Inc., and KCSourceLink; State and Local Government Organization: Missouri Technology Corporation; and Federal Government Organization: U.S. SBA, Kansas City District Office (Kansas City, MO).
